The Healing Process.

Half an hour later found the Doctor and Rose in the medical bay trying to establish the extent of their injuries. Rose had managed to escape with a broken toe, a couple of bumps and bruises and a stiff knee, which she thought was more due to the way she had been positioned as she had sat cradling the Doctor's head.

The Doctor was lying on a bed trying to talk Rose through the complicated procedures of injury scanning. She stood over him frowning down at a long thin bleeping device that reminded her of those metal detector things at the airport. She held her tongue between her teeth as she ran the rod over his midsection, halting as it emitted a series of beeps and the light up screen turned a faint mauve.

"Eh, Doctor? Isn't mauve like, bad or something?"

The Doctor frowned and looked up at Rose.

"Bring it here and lemme see."

Rose turned the device around so that the Doctor could see the screen. He looked through the information compounded and winced fresh as he found out the extent of his damage.

"Ah. Well that's not very good is it? No, not good at all. My insides seem to be in a bit of a pickle. Well if we're talking plant life then it's probably a bit more of a cactus really. Maybe even a Poseidon Cactus. Purple…twisted…kind of knarled."

"Doctor?"

She looked at him completely exasperated as he gave her a sheepish grin.

"So you're probably wondering what is wrong with me huh? Well I'm slightly battered."

"Slightly?"

"Well…bumps, bruises, burns, twisted knee, cracked rib, broken arm, broken collarbone, and I can't really feel my left foot. Not too bad really…considering. What makes things worse though is my suit is all crumpled and you're probably going to have to mutilate my trouser leg and shoe to sort the knee and foot out."

"Me? What can I do? I'm not the Doctor you are."

"This is true but I can't even reach half of my injuries. The rib sees to that."

Rose took a good look at the Doctor with a renewed sense of worry and sympathy. She was no good at healing things or looking after people. When Mickey had twisted his ankle she had stayed round his to take care of him but only managed to make things worse by turning over in her sleep and kicking him. Mickey had yelped and fell out of the bed and bruised his tailbone! He had never let her look after him again after that.

"Don't worry, I'll talk you through every step of the way. It shouldn't be too bad. The medical technology in this room is mostly non-evasive. All you'll really need to do is bandage me up when the initial healing is done. Might not even need to do that though."

Rose got to work helping the Doctor off with his clothing. He had been absolutely right too. In order to minimise pain and discomfort, she had had to use the sonic screwdriver on his shoe and trousers to get them off. He had winced and scowled like a caned schoolboy when it came time to take of his suit jacket and shirt. Rose had helped him to an upright position on the bed so she could easily undo buttons and remove layers as gently as possible. Finally, after much pain and mumbled Gallifreyan curses, she had him down to his boxer shorts.

Roses eyebrows immediately shot up as she tried without much luck to stifle a giggle. Upon noticing her reaction the Doctor felt a pang of sadness and hurt that his present condition was causing her so much amusement. However, after following the direction of her eyes the Doctor realised what was so funny and became mightily embarrassed.

"They were a gift from Jack. It'd be a bit rude if I didn't wear them!"

Rose just looked at him, eyes twinkling with glee.

"They were probably a joke gift. Especially considering the grumpiness of the old you. What was he thinking giving you black satin boxers covered in love hearts? Anyway, since when did you ever care about being rude or not?"

The Doctor gave her a petulant glare before instructing her how to proceed with setting up the instruments for his healing process. She moved over to a big mechanical bed device that looked a lot like a tanning bed. It had the stationary base with the lidded top half that moved up and down for access. On the outside of the lid was a control panel with many lights buttons and symbols on it.

The Doctor talked Rose through the process of setting it up, selecting his species from the computer archive and inputting the data from his most attention needing injuries. She had sobered from the shock of his choice in underclothing by the time it came to help him over to the machine. He gasped and moaned with pain as Rose tried her best to support his weight. She managed to manoeuvre him over without jarring him too much. After she laid him down and put a rest under his neck and head he grabbed her hand and looked deep into her eyes.

"Rose, while I'm in this contraption I'm gonna have to be sedated. That means you're going to have to inject me."

At her perplexed look of protest he became insistent.

"I don't particularly want to be awake for this. The machine works by creating a heavy force and moulding injuries back together, re-fusing cells and burning muscles back into working order. It's a painful process, one that I don't want to be lucid enough to experience. Not only that, but…"

Rose strained to hear the rest of his quiet and garbled words. After watching his eyes shift uncomfortably for a few moments she realised what he was so unwilling to admit to her.

"You're claustrophobic!"

"No I'm not! Or…eh…ah…tell anyone and I'll jettison your favourite teddy bear into deep space!"

Grinning, Rose moved about the room following more instructions and getting the needle and drugs ready for the Doctor's sedation. She absolutely hated the thought of sticking a big ass needle in the Doctor's arm. She loaded a syringe with a strange sort of glowing green liquid. She had no idea what it was but it was what the Doctor ordered. She sat down beside him and tied a chord around his upper arm. He flinched and paled visibly when she started tapping the vein on his inner elbow. It wasn't that he was worried about a little injection, but that he was worried about a little injection being administered by a twenty-year-old shop-girl chav.

She smiled down at him reassuringly and sunk the needle into his vein. She injected the drug and watched as his eyelids fluttered closed, his face relaxed and his breathing deepened. She stared at him in wonderment. He was so beautiful her Doctor. Seeing him so broken and fragile caused an immense feeling of protectiveness to well inside her. She bent low and brushed her lips against his forehead in a tender kiss.

Straightening up, she lowered the lid of the machine and pressed the button on the panel and started the healing cycle.

The machine started screeching and grinding, flashing various lights as different procedures went underway. Rose flinched with it all, knitting her brows and chewing her bottom lip. She could definitely see why the Doctor had wished to be unconscious throughout this. Even being on the outside was terrible.

He was in there for about two hours before the machine beeped its completion and released the lock on the lid. Rose lifted the top and cautiously peered down at him. If it weren't for the slight fading of swelling and bruising surrounding his worst injuries, Rose would not have thought that the machine had done anything at all. He still looked beaten and pale.

She reached for another needle that she had previously prepared and sank that into another vein.

His eyes began to flicker under the lids and he slowly opened them and looked at her.

"Hey sleepy head, how you feeling?"

He gave her his best dashing sleepy grin.

"Never better. How do I look?"

"Never better."

Rose picked up the scanner again and checked him over; making sure that the machine had done its job properly. She found that the only injuries left were the trivial outer ones. Bruises and scrapes mostly.

They shared a moment of fond smiles before the Doctor attempted to haul himself into a sitting position. He winced slightly at the tightness of his ribs but other than that managed wonderfully. He breathed deeply for a few seconds, trying to control the dizzy spots clouding his vision. When he got his bearings he gave Rose a deep and penetrating stare.

"Thank you Rose."

"What for Doctor?"

He gave an evasive shrug as response. He slipped his feet over the side of the bed and put them gingerly on the floor, testing to see whether they would take his weight or not.

"Well what do you say about finding out what happened to the Tardis, where we are, when we are and why we are? Here I mean."

He gave her an award-winning grin and strolled out of the medical room towards the control room. Following closely behind him Rose cleared her throat to get his attention. He turned to face her, eyebrows raised questioningly. She mirrored his expression looking him in the eye before wiggling slightly on the spot and lowering her eyes and giggling manically. With a glare of confusion the Doctor followed her gaze down his body. When he realised what she was looking at he squirmed uncomfortably and shyly.

"I could probably do with making a pit stop to my room to…er…dress…maybe."

With that he promptly turned red and walked off in the opposite direction towards his room.